What is knowledge? Part 1

Why has the word ‘knowledge’ all but disappeared from our vocabulary? Part one of this post shows how knowledge has been surreptitiously pushed aside by beliefs and belief systems, subtly assisted by stolen concepts and substituted words. We no longer know. We believe. Part two of this post is quite different. From a series of ‘channelled briefings’ heralding dire warnings for the whole of Mankind, it offers a very different interpretation of ‘knowledge.’ Part One expresses the need to be very careful concerning ‘knowledge,’ especially important if we are to make sense of Part Two.

Knowledge as it is known

Ordinarily, knowledge refers to facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education, as the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It speaks of surety and certainty, steadfastness, truth and solidarity. Its tool is inquiry and discernment, and both require intellectual honesty. Discretionary investigation will lead to understanding, by usefully separating beliefs from truths, illusions from reality, pretences from facts, foolishness from wisdom, thus ignorance from knowledge. ‘Knowledge’ results from the process of diligent inquiry, sometimes defined as a Cabbie knowing every street in London and the shortest routes from point to point.

Beware beliefs

Belief is different. We can believe without knowing anything much about the matter at all. Sadly, the word belief is so elastically pliable that we cannot grasp whether it delivers the truth, or not. It allows a person to say what they consider to be true, while artfully avoiding any charge of being sure. Belief systems may seem to relieve any need to exercise honest enquiry. Certitude is often held to be intolerance of another’s beliefs. Indeed we are often expected to apologise for being certain in case someone’s feelings are offended. Today, belief superimposes as knowledge, seemingly relieving responsibility for knowing.

Awareness

Does awareness mean knowledge, or is vice versa true? Does recognition mean knowledge? We can be aware of something and yet have no understanding of what it is, what it is made from, what purpose it serves, or whether it will explode, rust, or lay eggs. What then is meant by pleading ‘we must become more aware’? Are we to become aware of more things or circumstances, or instead to know more about what we are already aware? Are we to grow our knowledge database, or sharpen our perceptive abilities?

Without this distinction, it may be inferred that awareness means knowledge. To substitute ‘perception’ for ‘understanding’ is far worse than mere ambiguity. Refering to some perceived entity as ‘reality’ because our senses testify its existence will usually serve for physical items, but not for theories, postulates and hypotheses. For these, knowledge certifies truth, not mere existence. Nonetheless it is relatively easy to substitute beliefs for knowledge while pointing to ‘awareness’ as evidence of the belief’s certainty. The risk is that knowledge departs our vocabulary and unsubstantiated beliefs assume preeminence.

Reality

What do we really know about what we often call ‘reality.’ We are aware of something’s existence. It is real. But to rely on evidential knowledge ‘of its existence’ as sufficiently explaining its ‘properties,’ including its source, uses and applications,’ is to short circuit knowledge most certainly.

As shown, a healthy relationship exists between existence, reality, perception, and knowledge. The last depends on the first three. None of the first three depend on knowledge. What then is meant by the phrase, ‘we create our own reality?’ We can use wood to make a coffee table. Have we created reality? No, we’ve created a real table. The same applies to having created a joyful experience. It was real. It did happen, but to refer to this as creating a new reality is just another form of delusion. How so? It results from switching ‘real’ as an adjective to ‘reality’ as a noun. We substitute the description of something (coffee table) for its existence (real), thereby canceling any need to grasp its essence. Knowledge is diluted thereby. That’s obfuscation, not communication. Once computer chips, mud puddles, airplanes, sheep, and quantum physics are all called ‘realities,’ no definition distinguishes one from the remainder. When existence, beliefs and awareness, have equal standing as ‘reality,’ knowledge fades into oblivion whereby truth or certainty cannot be established.

Stolen concepts

Has vocabulary just slipped inadvertently or accidentally to using one word in place of another? Or have we paid so little attention to critical thinking that subjectivity has replaced objectivity? This switch is the case I think, and it’s worse even than stolen concepts.

The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends. —Leonard Peikoff

Stolen concepts more easily identify than a vocabulary shift that occurs over an extended period, decades even. Selfishness, back in the 1940’s, meant concern with one’s own interests. Today it means concern with one’s own interests at the expense of others. The moral difference is massive. A gradual change that subtly blends elements of awareness, reality, and perception to the point where ‘knowledge’ vanishes would be remarkable if intentional, but will barely be known if knowledge is diluted or suppressed through apathy or indifference.

Feelings

Strong emotions can cause physical responses. Our hackles rise if we feel threatened. We instinctively smile when something delights. Adrenaline may course through our veins and our breathing rate change when angered. We can feel energy surges in our heart. Although we experience feelings both emotionally and physically, today we refer to that experience as responding ‘energetically.’ On hearing something new today, we do not say ‘I understand,’ instead we say ‘that resonates with me.’ Well, it may, but does resonance confirm knowledge and understanding? Or does it merely testify that new information aligns with prior awareness, beliefs or so-called ‘realities?’ If ‘resonance’ merely confirms that no disagreement exists between new information and the old, what objective need is there to know what the new actually offers? Cognitive dissonance multiplies surely?

Irony concerning knowledge

Here is the irony. Word or phrase substitutions like those described are often found in articles exhorting that we ‘raise our consciousness.’ If we are to be convinced that consciousness is (subjectively) feeling related, whereby knowledge is irrelevant, what exactly will elevate conscious understanding? Unfortunately, human science still wrestles with ‘consciousness.’ Stuck with its subjective nature, meanings of the two terms ‘conscience’ and ‘consciousness’ are often confused and are misunderstood by many people.

Both ‘Law from Within,’ and my forthcoming book ‘Conscious Dynamics,’ explain that knowledge and consciousness are both objectively and subjectively connected, i.e., cognitively, emotionally and spiritually. If we want to raise our ‘consciousness,’ on, or to a spiritual level, it is vital that we understand how our cognitive and emotional processes function and communicate. More than who and what we are, we need to know how we function objectively and subjectively. Unfortunately, academia seems reticent to consider consciousness as objective in nature.

Many philosophers consider experience to be the essence of consciousness, and believe that experience can only fully be known from the inside, subjectively. —Wikipedia

Part Two of this post introduces an entirely different description of ‘knowledge.’ It presents a warning for Mankind that if true, will shock many folks, particularly among believers. The narrative hails that avoiding this circumstance can only come from ‘knowledge,’ but the description given (for that) is unlike anything discussed in this part.